


Live Well

by Kittenshift17



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: After Primfaya, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Post-Apocalypse, Primfaya, Roan Lives, Survival, obviously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:00:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25334275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kittenshift17/pseuds/Kittenshift17
Summary: “When I became the King of Azgeda... that first night, after they crowned me; after everything I’d done to get there; everything we’d done, to put me there.... I went to bed that night in that fucking tower, half a mile above the ground in a big feather bed with all the comforts and luxuries I could want. And all night long, I tossed and turned and wished I was here.”Clarke reached out, putting her hand on his shoulder and offering silent comfort, unsure what to say in the face of his admission.“Roan...” she began, though she had no idea how to continue. He cut her off before she could.“In Allie’s bunker, we spoke about it being a hard day... do you remember what you said?” he asked, turning his head back to look at her.“They’re all hard,” Clarke whispered, nodding.“They don’t have to be,” he told her.
Relationships: Clarke Griffin/Roan
Comments: 12
Kudos: 87





	Live Well

“What the hell are you doing?” Clarke hissed when Roan yanked her behind a tree, boxing her in with his arms, his much larger body caging hers and making her feel claustrophobic. He stood so close that their pelvises touched, and she could smell the musky scent of him. After the day they’d had, the rusty stink of blood mingled with earth, gunpower, and sweat wasn’t a surprise to her; though she was surprised that the scent didn’t offend her nose so much as it appealed to her.

“I won’t let you get hurt, _Wanheda_ ,” Roan muttered, his voice by her ear as an arrow whizzed by them in the fading afternoon light. “Run that way after he fires the next arrow. Go between those two pines and around the rock. Watch the ground-trap on the middle of the deer path under the moss, next to the blackberry shrub.”

He tilted his jaw to her right before peeking around the tree without looking at her as though her proximity had no effect on him. Clarke wondered if maybe it didn’t. She hadn’t seen the appeal of a man - any man - since she’d been forced to murder Finn. When Roan first taken her prisoner so long ago in the Trading Post, she’d sensed he was attracted to her, but she’d been so into Lexa and Niylah at the time, maybe Roan had dismissed her as only preferring girls, instead of being fluid either way. It wouldn’t be the first time that’d happened to her since people learned of her and Lexa. Clarke was surprised, standing there pressed against him, to find herself attracted to a man once more.

Roan hissed, jerking back so quickly that his jaw knocked her temple before an arrow _thunked_ into the bark of their tree.

“Go!” he growled, shoving her sideways and stepping out, his bow notched with an arrow that he let fire at their assailant. 

The wet _thwack_ of the point into human flesh followed by a pained groan told her that Roan had hit his mark, but she didn’t turn back to look. Racing through the trees, she danced around the ground-trap he’d mentioned, accidentally knocking the edge hard enough to crumble it, but avoiding the stakes below before she kept running. Another arrow whistled past her, _thunking_ into a tree while she weaved and Clarke skidded around the rock he’d spoken of with Roan on her heels. 

“That way,” he pointed to a trail through the forest - nothing more than a deer-track. “Until you hit the river.”

“What about you?” she asked when she’d run a few more steps and turned to find he hadn’t followed her. Instead he drew his knife and crouched behind the rock. 

Roan looked over his shoulder at her, that fierce expression on his scarred face that she grown so accustomed to since meeting him.

“Go!” he growled, eyes narrowed before their attacker rounded the rock, an arrow sticking out of his chest while he wheezed. 

Roan leaped at him immediately, fighting hard and Clarke frowned but turned and ran where he’d told her, wondering where she was supposed to go once she’d reached the river. He’d pushed her all day long as his fellow Grounders pursued them. Primfaya hadn’t been nearly as destructive to the human race as they’d been led to believe, and a number of the Grounders left outside who’d survived wanted Clarke’s head. 

They wanted Roan’s head too, thanks to his failed death at Luna’s hand. He’d survived, though how he’d done so, Clarke still didn’t know. She’d seen the wounds on his chest, stomach, and arms where Luna had cut him. How the Black Rain hadn’t melted his flesh - how the air of the Death Wave hadn’t choked his lungs, Clarke still didn’t know. She only knew that they were both alive, and Bellamy and Echo and all the others had rocketed into space while her mother and Marcus and Octavia had burrowed into the bunker, and they were left outside.

She looked back, wanting to help Roan; wanting to fight. She couldn’t, she knew. Climbing that tower to get her friends launched into space had nearly killed her and she was still blistered and probably disfigured after the Primfaya exposure. Roan wasn’t. He was only wounded from the conclave fights. She didn’t understand that either, since she had Nightblood and he didn’t. At the river, Clarke watched the fast running water race by over the rapids, and she glanced toward the skies. The sun was setting; the light failing, and soon they would be pitched into darkness where it would be that much easier for their pursuers to sneak up on them. Soon the night creatures that prowled – those that survived - would be hunting, too. 

Clarke waited impatiently, gasping and clutching her side where a stitch burned. She was weak, and she wasn’t sure how much further she could run. Sitting down on a rock by the water, she tried to catch her breath and waited, hoping to hell Roan would win the skirmish. Honestly, she was so tired and so heartsore to have been left behind and locked outside that if Roan didn’t survive the fight, she didn’t imagine she’d be long out of her own grave.

“ _Wanheda_ ,” Roan’s voice impeded as darkness fell completely while she waited and Clarke jerked around, seeing him limping out of the forest, a fresh cut on his cheek and new blood staining his hands.

“Oh, thank god,” Clarke sighed, wilting in exhaustion and relief. 

“Get up,” he said as he limped over. “It’s not much further.”

“Where are you taking me?” she asked, looking up at him as she struggled to her feet.

“Home,” he murmured, his voice so soft and the chatter of the river so loud that she almost missed it. 

She frowned, wondering if that meant the Ice Nation, or somewhere else; wondering if he’d ever truly had a home. Clarke hadn’t. It was a sad realisation, but it was the truth. The Ark had been both her home and her prison, and ever since they’d landed back on Earth, she’d been running and fighting and hiding, always on the move, never stopping in one place for long. She didn’t ask him where ‘home’ was. She was too tired to bother, and honestly, as long as she’d be able to rest when they got there, that’d be fine with her. Her body was working overtime to combat the radiation in the air, and she could tell it was straining Roan, too, but he didn’t complain. 

In silence, he led her along the river’s edge for almost a mile before reaching a spot where a large tree lay across a fast flowing, deep section of the channel. 

“Over you go,” he said. “Shuffle along on your arse if you have to.”

He limped out onto the trunk carefully before hissing when he tried to taking another limping step on his wounded leg and almost lost his balance. Before he could topple, Clarke was right behind him, clutching a wayward branch, her hand on his shoulder to steady him. He looked back in surprise, his brow furrowed.

“I won’t let you get hurt either,” she murmured by way of explanation when his confusion flickered across his features. “Go. I’ll follow.”

She nodded him across the log and he limped slowly, resorting to turning sideways and practically dragging his wounded leg behind him. Clarke frowned when she saw the dark stain of blood smearing across the wood as he did so. He was badly hurt then. Shit. She didn’t say anything, but when they were both safely across, Clarke caught Roan’s wrist, guiding his arm over her shoulders and relieving some of the pressure on his leg. 

“That way,” he said after a long minute of watching her face for some hint that she meant him ill. 

They shuffled into the trees, and though it was tough going, half a mile into the woods, they came across a rocky outcrop. 

“Inside,” he murmured, his voice low and pained by her ear as he led her up a very faint trail and to a door, roughly hewn - Clarke realised with surprise - from the same tree they’d used for a bridge.

“Home?” she asked when he pushed the door open.

It was a small cave, boasting a forgotten fireplace and a bedframe crafted from stripped pine saplings and tightly woven river reeds.

“Home,” Roan told her quietly. “Home, after they banished me. No one else knows where it is. No one comes here.”

“Why?” Clarke frowned, helping him to the edge of the bed and setting him down before moving toward the small woodpile in the corner and the woven basket of kindling beside it to begin building a fire to keep away the predators.

“I killed any who tried,” Roan admitted quietly. “And the beasts have free reign out here. This is no-man’s land between Kru territories. The big cats aren’t the only creatures calling this part of the world home, and most human who might find it don’t make it across the river.”

“Will the cats come prowling?” Clarke asked, worriedly.

“Probably,” Roan nodded. “Trailing fresh blood to the door will lure a few of them. Some of them know me, after all this time. You live alone in the wilderness long enough, you develop a respect for the wildlife, but they’ve developed a respect for me too. They don’t like my fire, and they know I’ll kill them if they don’t kill me.”

Clarke nodded, crossing back to the door he must’ve spent days cutting, closing it firmly and noting the barricades tucked into an alcove behind it to hold it firmly shut.

“What’s out there?” she asked. 

“Whatever escaped the zoos and survived from before the end of the world,” Roan shrugged. “Bears. Wolves. Lions. There’s a few tigers and some of the bigger primates. There’s a herd of elephants that passes through every year around this time, and there’s a couple of hippos that made their home down around the bend in the river. This corner of the world is where all the forgotten creatures come to carve out an existence.”

Clarke glanced up at him as she arranged the fire and got it smouldering, lighting up the blackness of the cave and illuminating that once upon a time Roan must’ve made quite the home for himself here. There were drying racks for meat and bundles of herbs hanging from the ceiling, furs piled on the bed, and all the tools for survival arranged around the large space, as needed. Weapons, baskets, storage containers.

“I suppose it’s been a while since you’ve been back?” she guessed.

“Not since I caught you,” he nodded. “Might still be some apples in the cache though. Over there, behind that fur. Go down the stairs.”

“Stairs?” Clarke frowned. 

“Take a knife,” he said. “Never know what might’ve found it’s way in here.”

Clarke frowned and nodded, pulling her knife from her belt and struggling across the cave and behind the hung bearskin. She was shocked to find stairs dug into the soil, compacted into hard mud and lined with stones to keep the shape. She followed them down into a cellar he must’ve dug himself, and even more items were stored therein. Piles of furs and salvaged things from blankets, tarps and ropes to what looked like an old kitchen sink; reeds, baskets of apples, sealed containers of dried meat. He was well stocked to survive in this place.

A few mice skittered away from her as she approached, but she located the apples and some jerky that looked alright before returning above. She found Roan had removed his boots and was in the process of wriggling out of his pants to get at the wound on his leg. His knife was stuck in the flames, heating, ready to cauterize whatever wound he’d endured. 

“Need a hand?” she asked, putting down the food items and shuffling closer. 

“I got it,” he said. “Eat. Rest. I know you’re tired, _Wanheda_.”

Clarke frowned. 

“I can help,” she said. “You got hurt protecting me.”

“I got hurt fighting,” he argued. “Don’t be a martyr.”

“You fought him for me. You specifically said you wouldn’t let me get hurt.” She frowned. 

“And I won’t,” he muttered, hissing and almost falling as he stepped out of his pants, revealing pale, hairy legs, strong and toned with hard muscle. One was sticky with blood from a gash on his upper thigh. It’d avoided the artery, but it was bleeding heavily just the same, a long, deep cut bitten into the meaty flesh. 

“Roan,” she frowned.

He ignored her, reaching for the knife he’d set in the flames and lifting it, ready to do what needed to be done. She noted that it wouldn’t be the only burn on his skin. He’d done this before, many times over. He hissed and a low groan escaped him when he pressed the red-hot blade to his skin. The sizzling of human hair and skin filled her ears, and the stink of it filled her nose, but Clarke didn’t look away. 

He sighed when the wound was cauterized, throwing down the blade and sitting heavily on the edge of the bed once more. Clarke offered him the apples and the jerky she’d brought up from below before carefully sitting down on the bed beside him. Silence reigned between them before he laughed humourlessly and bit into his apple, shaking his head. 

“What happens now?” she asked after they’d eaten. “My people are back in space, or all in a hole in the ground. From how much I’m still struggling with the radiation, even with Nightblood, they won’t be able to survive the surface for a while. How are you even surviving it?”

Clarke frowned as Roan rose from the bed, still barefoot and pantless, to feed a little more wood to the fire.

“I have no idea,” he shrugged his shoulders. “Might be the effect of that blood oath we swore. Might be my body and those of the other surviving Grounders has had longer to develop antibodies and mechanisms to better withstand radiation. We’re not all born with Nightblood, but we’ve been surviving the toxicity of the surface since clawing out way out of bunkers and other survival holes from the End. You live and breathe this shit long enough, you build up a tolerance, or you die. Skaikru didn’t have the chance up there.”

He pointed toward the ceiling and the sky beyond it before meeting her gaze across the flames. 

“We’re alive,” she said. “So what happens now? My people are gone. I don’t know how many of yours survived.”

“They all want my head,” he reminded her. “Want your head, too.”

“I noticed,” Clarke sighed. “So what are we going to do?”

Roan shrugged, looking around the cave like he couldn’t decide if he hated the place, or was happy to be back. 

“You remember when we were on our way to trying to develop a cure from Luna’s _juis?”_ he asked. “In the car?”

“You asked what happens if we survive,” Clarke nodded. “If we just keep killing each other.”

Roan tipped his head to look at her, his blue eyes intense as they fixed upon her from across the fire. Clarke could decide if they gleamed with anger or sadness.

“Seems we do,” he said quietly. 

She sighed. “It seems so,” she agreed. “I just... I wanted so badly for everyone to just... get along. I thought if we could all survive, we’d find a way.”

“No,” Roan answered. “You said the difference between us was that I didn’t care who survived if my people didn’t win the conclave, while you only cared that _people_ survived. Was that true?”

“Yes,” Clarke said solemnly. “I don’t know why it matters to me. Maybe it’s an effect of living on the Ark for so long; or because I was raised inside the important circles governing Skaikru aboard the Ark and their primary effort was always about the continued survival of the human race at all costs, but it’s what I hoped for. Many of my people made it into the bunker. Many of yours did too, it seems. Many from all thirteen clans, if those people back there who survived the death wave are to be believed. They all went in with the intent of surviving, even at the cost of the people outside.”

“The ones outside are angrier now,” Roan told her. “The ones outside want to kill the ones inside even more, now.”

“I know,” Clarke sighed. 

For a long time, only the sound of the fire crackling and spitting filled the air between them and Roan watched her in that way of his that always seemed to disarm her; to see right through all her bravado and all her bullshit, and Clarke looked back at him, wondering what in the hell they were supposed to do now.

“When you said that to me,” Roan said quietly, rising to his feet from where he’d crouched to feed the fire. “Something became clear to me.”

Clarke frowned, watching him round the fire and cross back to the bed. It wasn’t late enough for bed yet; not really, but he jerked him thumb to have her rise so he could pull back the furs and blankets piled on it before clambering into bed, stopping only to rip his shirt off over his head, leaving him in just underwear. 

“What?” she asked when he moved further across the large bed to make room for her so that she might climb in beside him, making no fuss about having her in his home or sharing his bed with her because there were no other options, and he was not a man who gave a damn about pretence when faced with cold hard facts.

“You were right,” Roan said quietly when Clarke shimmied out of her outer things, bloodstained and messy as they were. “I didn’t give a damn what happened to anyone else if Azgeda didn’t win. But I also realised... I didn’t really give a damn about Azgeda surviving, either. Luna’s speech was radical and complete bullshit, for the most part, but she was right that the killing had to stop; that it wouldn’t stop, as long as the clans survived.”

“You don’t think the killing would’ve stopped if only Azgeda had made it into that bunker?” she frowned at him. 

“I don’t think any two people can coexist without wanting to kill each other,” he replied. “Look at you and me. How many times have we wanted to kill each other?”

Clarke frowned, supposing he had a point. She’d never _wanted_ to kill him, but she would be lying to say she had never conceived it and never attempted to do so.

“I hated this place, when they banished me,” he confessed quietly, rolling to his back and staring up at the ceiling of the cave. “I cursed it every night I went to sleep, and I cursed it again every time I woke up. I was obsessed with finding a way back to my people.”

Clarke listened quietly, surprised he would share so much when he’d proved, thus far, to be such a private man. 

“When I became the King of Azgeda... that first night, after they crowned me; after everything I’d done to get there; everything _we’d_ done, to put me there.... I went to bed that night in that fucking tower, half a mile above the ground in a big feather bed with all the comforts and luxuries I could want. And all night long, I tossed and turned and wished I was here.”

Clarke reached out, putting her hand on his shoulder and offering silent comfort, unsure what to say in the face of his admission.

“Roan...” she began, though she had no idea how to continue. He cut her off before she could. 

“In Allie’s bunker, we spoke about it being a hard day... do you remember what you said?” he asked, turning his head back to look at her.

“They’re all hard,” Clarke whispered, nodding.

“They don’t have to be,” he told her. “When I was banished, living in this damn cave all alone, I thought the days were hard; made harder by my isolation and needing to do every damn thing myself just to survive. But after dealing with people; being in charge of people; being their King... I prefer this. It’s going to be a long time before your people inside that bunker can survive on the surface. Might be even longer while the remaining Krus try to figure their lives out now when all the important people are down there. But I don’t want any part of it, Clarke. I don’t want to be their king. I don’t care if they survive or how they survive or how the govern themselves. I don’t care if they fucking kill each other. I just want to live here in peace. I want to live well.”

Clarke frowned when he waited a moment, his eyes holding hers, before he rolled away, turning his back to her and revealing the scars, like wings, burned into his flesh. They glowed stark white compared to his tanned skin by the light of the fire, and Clarke was struck again by their beauty. 

“Goodnight, _Wanheda_ ,” he murmured, and Clarke sighed.

“Goodnight,” she whispered in reply, exhaustion claiming her.

She wondered if maybe he was right. Maybe their time was done. What the other survivors on the outside of the bunker did with their lives was up to them. She couldn’t deny that those days when she’d been on the run had been some of the easiest of her life; when she only had herself to please. Maybe she could have that again. Maybe this cave could be home for her, as it was home for Roan. Maybe she could just exist in peace, without worrying about everyone else for a change. 

Maybe, until that damn bunker opened again and she had to face her mother and Marcus and the others, once more... maybe until then she could learn how to live well, too. 


End file.
